Financial markets still melting down

Congratulations, taxpayers: you now own 80% of the nation's largest insurance company. Krugman: "(they) have made determination that risk -- an inherent tenet to the reward of capitalism -- is to be socialized." I prefer "Privatize the profits and socialize the losses". Seems to fit better with the fascism or corporatism or whatever they are refusing to call it that prevails today.

From here, let's just go with a few headlines and maybe an emphasized excerpt:

U.S. regulators try to find WaMu buyer

Federal bank insurance fund dwindling

"We've got a ... retail bank run forming in this country," said Christopher Whalen, senior vice president and managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics.

Bush suddenly scraps comments on financial markets

Stocks plunge over AIG bailout and financial system fears

White House defends AIG rescue and signals possibility of more

The White House gave a newly nuanced description Wednesday of the U.S. economy, calling it a mixed picture and saying it ultimately will weather the current turmoil. Press secretary Dana Perino, President Bush's chief spokeswoman, also defended the extraordinary federal takeover of sinking insurance giant American International Group Inc., while not ruling out further private-sector bailouts by Washington.

A bit more, just to highlight the differences:

Among those pleading for Washington's help, for instance, is the struggling U.S. auto industry, which has suffered massive losses but remains a backbone of the economy. A bill before Congress would give the companies $25 billion in federal loans, a program established but not funded under an energy bill passed last year. Perino said the White House would not comment on that prospect until Congress decides whether to go ahead with approving the money. ...

Perino refused to repeat the White House's standard line about the U.S. economy, often used by Bush, who has said that its "fundamentals are strong." Republican presidential candidates John McCain used that phrase Monday, earning him ridicule from Democratic opponent Barack Obama as being out of touch. McCain later clarified that he meant that the fundamental strength of the American worker remained strong.

With those accusations and counter-accusations swirling in an election campaign environment, Perino suggested Wednesday that this assessment no longer stands.

"It's not clear-cut," she said, because of a proliferation of both positive and negative economic indicators, sometimes coming on the same day.

"We are in a position of strength to be able to deal with this crisis," Perino said. "It will take us awhile."

As recently as July 31, Bush said: "I believe the foundations of this economy are strong." In an Aug. 2 radio address, Bush prodded Congress to expand the energy supply so that "our economy remains the strongest, most vibrant and most hopeful in the world."

And one more, echoing Mr. Whalen above:

FDIC's insurance fund: $45 billion. The assets of Washington Mutual, which is teetering on the brink of insolvency: $309 billion. A WaMu collapse would make it 10 times the size of the greatest bank failure in US history. The FDIC may have to borrow money from the Treasury to cover insured losses (remember that deposits are only insured up to $100,000, which limits taxpayer risk).

John Herbert W. McHoover

Few presidential candidates can lay claim to comparison to history's worst presidents. The 2008 Republican nominee has hit the trifecta:

"The fun-fun-fundamentals of our economy are sound."



John McAlzeimers can now proudly stand alongside GWB ("Iraq for 100 years", bombbombbomb Iran"), GHWB (by virtue of the lamest possible VP selection) and now Herbert ("Prosperity is just around the corner") Hoover.

But in fairness, McSame has displaced Al Gore in urban legend: despite not being able to read his own e-mail or operate a computer, his senior aide claims he invented the Blackberry.

And there's another comparison I am compelled to note by virtue of its withering irony: the SNL skit in 1988 featuring Dana Carvey as Poppy Bush and Jon Lovitz as a height-challenged Michael Dukakis, muttering: "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."

How can Barack Obama be losing to this guy?

(I have quite a few notions about this, but I'll wait a little longer to see if the American electorate wises up on its own.)

Media lockout in hardest-hit areas?

Burnt Orange has the initial report -- with links to both Think Progress and Capitol Annex -- regarding Houston media's virtual lockout of certain areas of Galveston's west end and the Bolivar Peninsula, areas where the most severe devastation have been seen in some overhead aerials and video but little on-the-ground. Because there are less than ten deaths announced from Galveston -- fewer than in the Midwest -- there are some speculative and mostly unattributed sources trickling in, in absence of eyeball verification.

Today I got the infamous text-message-from-a-friend's-brother, someone who was allegedly part of the helicopter crew and emergency management team that ferried Gov. Perry from Beaumont to Galveston and then across to Bolivar, and then on to Port Arthur, Orange, and Bridge City, Texas. Perry viewed Galveston from the air, he reports, then peeled off while the rest of the helicopter convoy proceeded. The crew aboard the copters saw many bodies floating in the waters on both sides of the peninsula; they stopped counting them at 160. The sheriff on BP -- it is unclear to me whether this would be Galveston or Chambers County -- who lost his home at Gilchrist Beach wants state and local media to come in and view the calamity but state and federal officials are continuing to enforce the media blackout of the area.

I really have no idea whether this account could be accurate. Since there is no nearby morgue, medical examiner's office or even decent funeral home left standing to process so much as a fourth of this number of corpses, it seems implausible that some staging area could have been rapidly constructed to do. The logistics of transporting a hundred or more bodies off the peninsula without anyone knowing are exceptionally problematic as well: vehicles could only traverse west back to Galveston via a fifteen-minute ferry ride, or east up the peninsula and then north through High Island to Winnie, a trip of thirty minutes in the best of conditions. Those areas suffered severe hurricane destruction themselves, of course.

In addition there is some video at KFDM.com (I am unable to effectively access it) as well as the BeaumontEnterprise.com site. That's as local as media gets if it's not from Houston or Galveston, and if they saw any bodies floating, they didn't include it in their reports.

Still, we have a nonsensical number of deaths reported in Galveston so far, and I cannot find a report of even one fatality in Houston directly attributable to Ike:

The Galveston death toll brings the local total from Hurricane Ike to at least 11, including three unrelated deaths from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning from generator use, officials said.

The Harris County Medical Examiner's office said today that three people - a 4-year-old boy and two men, ages 18 and 34 - died when generators were being used without proper ventilation. The three are unrelated and their identities are not being released.

The storm and its fallout are also believed responsible for several other deaths in Montgomery, Chambers and Walker counties from fires and fallen trees.

I suppose "generator asphyxiation" is Ike-related, but the story confuses Galveston with Harris County unless that is two separate trios of dead people in both places. Ike has fried my reading comprehension a little.

HPD pulls a body out of Braes Bayou near my house once a week, and the same for Buffalo Bayou and others around town when there is barely a decent rainfall. Concealing a large number of deaths would demonstrate extraordinary coordination and secrecy in the best of times, and that's not an accurate description of what's going on here right now.

Any evidence of bodies being "hidden" from the media, and thus the public, is a story far too large for this little blog to break anyway.

So what's the story? Anyone?

Update (9/16): Burnt Orange has another eyewitness report of many bodies, and Houston media reported from Bolivar Peninsula today (specifically Art Rascon of KTRK). He didn't see any bodies. One "official" pronouncement claimed the "floaters" were from cemeteries, but there aren't too many cemeteries on BP and besides, it's caskets that pop out of the ground during severe flooding, not bodies.

Wrangling Ike

I can't find any gas for my chainsaw to remove these damned tree limbs, but I can post a Texas Progressive Alliance weekly roundup.

Please consider making a donation to the Red Cross to help relief efforts.

Why does Sarah Palin hate wolves? The Texas Cloverleaf clues us in.

Everybody knows that this year's wedge'em and hate'em issue is Hispanics immigration. CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme says Texas leads the way with banning rents in Farmers Branch, denying passports to citizens in the Valley and threatening document checks during an evacuation.

During the preparations for Hurricane Ike, Off the Kuff noted yet another lawsuit filed against Farmers Branch for its ongoing war against immigrants and apartment renters.

Sen. John Cornyn claims to be voting "Texas values" when he consistently rubber-stamps Bush in the U. S. Senate. Eye On Williamson asks: since when have torture, spying on Americans and misleading the country on matters of war and peace been Texas values?

PDiddie survived Ike almost exactly as he predicted.

BossKitty at TruthHugger wonders if disaster lessons recently learned, will be used as we watch Hurricane Ike Recovery, Texas Style.

Colloquialisms are a wonderful rhetorical device to create an instant sense of commonality within the minds of the voting public. However they can be misconstrued at ties (right, Governor Swift?) which is why McBlogger took some time to offer Sen. Obama (The BEST!) a phrase he could use that can't possibly be interpreted as anything other than an attack on John McCain and his worthless ideas, proposals and suggestions.

North Texas Liberal examines in depth the Palin pick, comparing and contrasting her with Obama's VP pick of Joe Biden, and dissecting the media's coverage of her.

jobsanger writes about how United States interference into Bolivia's internal affairs have gotten American ambassadors kicked out of two countries in South America, and how some politicians can't refuse even a bad photo op.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that state rep. Phil King (R-Waxahachie), chair of the House Regulated Industries Committee, is having a fund-raiser at the home of a lobbyist for telecom giant AT&T. King's committee just happens to regulate telecommunications in Texas.

Blackouts in Cincy, Black Monday for the banks

America's stockbrokers are folding:

In one of the most dramatic days in Wall Street’s history, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself on Sunday to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy protection and hurtled toward liquidation after it failed to find a buyer.

The humbling moves, which reshape the landscape of American finance, mark the latest chapter in a tumultuous year in which once-proud financial institutions have been brought to their knees as a result of hundreds of billions of dollars in losses because of bad mortgage finance and real estate investments.

The crisis is still rippling out, and may swallow AIG and Washington Mutual this week. Meanwhile there's good news about the price of oil:

Oil plunged $7 on Monday as investors fled to safer havens, due to turmoil in the U.S. financial system, and on early signs Hurricane Ike had spared key U.S. energy infrastructure. ...

U.S. crude dropped $7 to $94.18 barrel at 1135 GMT, the lowest level in seven months. U.S. oil dropped below $100 briefly on Friday for the first time since early April, and trade was open for a special session on Sunday due to Hurricane Ike.

... but the gasoline retailers in Tennessee haven't heard about it yet:

Gas has already shot up over $4 in a lot of places, even close to home. In Gatlinburg, one gas station is currently selling a gallon of regular for $4.15, though surrounding stations are charging 20 cents less.

Price-gouging like that was rampant across the country as it was feared that the US would lose 20% of its refining capacity -- that's our part down here -- from Ike's wrath. Not the case. Cars were lined up ten deep to pay $3.59 a gallon at the Chevron on Hwy. 6 and 290 in northwest Houston yesterday afternoon.

They probably wanted to leave because they didn't have a/c:

As night fell only one in four Houston-area electric customers had power.

Mercifully, temperatures forecast to dip into the upper 60s overnight helped with the heat, but did nothing for those with dwindling cell phone batteries, melting ice, spoiling food and restless children. As of 8 p.m. CenterPoint Energy had restored power to 380,000 customers, but 1.72 million were still without power.

And from the Buckeye State, as well as other Midwest locales, Ike is still beating US up:

Power outages darkened more than a million homes and businesses in Ohio and Kentucky.

More than 680,000 Duke Energy customers were without power Sunday night in southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky in the biggest outage in the company's history, said Duke Energy spokeswoman Kathy Meinke.

"It's going to be quite extensive," Meinke said. "Over 90 percent of our customers are without service."

Neil is still hoping to post something when he can make it out to the library, so I'll defer the belated Ohio report to him.

I'll find out later today what my place smells like.

EV 9/14: McPain at 270

Let's flip NV, NM, ND, FL and Montana to red, and Minnesota to grey. Only NH goes from grey to blue. Sing Hail to the Chief to President POW.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>